Doing Right More Often, More Quickly, More Reliably

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Doing Right Means Making Right Decisions

Hard Decisions

It seems one of the most difficult and terrifying things we do as an individual or a manager of an organization is make decisions. In the background is this agonizing thought that somehow the decision we make is going to send us or our organization irrevocably in the wrong direction and it will lead to disaster. As we mature over time, we find that it’s just not true; we will almost always find a way to recover. But we can all learn to be better decision-makers.

First understand that generally there are three categories of decision-makers who make mistakes.

Snap Decision-makers who take immediate action because they think they need to act quickly without exploring options or gathering information. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t work, it can be disastrous.
Deliberative Decision-makers want to make sure they have explored all the options and want to make sure they have ALL the information before they make a decision. The problem is you will NEVER have all the information and often if you deliberate too long you can miss valuable opportunities.
Never Decision-makers are ones who because decision-making is so hard don’t ever make a decision. Of course, the fallacy in that is that not making a decision IS a decision and one that almost ALWAYS leads to disaster.

Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail. Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure.
-John Maxwell

The good news is that there are ways to make better decisions and make them faster and easier. It will never be easy, but it can be easier. And it starts with applying three keys.

KNOW YOUR CORE VALUES – here’s a tip: if they aren’t written down somewhere, you don’t really know your core values. You want to have them written down where you can refer to them again and again. This is the foundation of what you stand for.
FOCUS ON YOUR PURPOSE OR INTENT – Either as an individual or as an organization. When you look at the options of a decision, you will examine each as to how they match up to BOTH your core values and your intent or purpose. If they don’t match up to both, it is probably not the right option for you.
SEEK WISE COUNSEL – Line up beforehand people whose opinions you trust and will allow you time to ask them questions and will ask you questions in return. They will give you perspective and help you consider options. THE DECISION IS STILL YOURS TO MAKE, but wise counsel can help guide you to making better decisions.

Four Steps to Building Teams with Inclusion

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Potatoes and People

Here’s a cool exercise you can use with your team or your company. I learned this with leader training we use for Boy Scouts.

You are going to buy a bag of potatoes (or gather rocks) and call your team or company together.
Hand each of them a potato (make a very solemn occasion of it. adds to the fun!)
Send everyone off by themselves for a couple of minutes and tell them to examine their potato and notice all of its unique characteristics.
When they gather back, you are going to ask each of them to introduce their potato to rest of the group. They can have a lot of fun with this – make up names and give it personality – and that’s all part of it.
After everyone has introduced their potato to the group, collect all the potatoes back in a bag and them randomly redistribute them. Then challenge everyone to find their unique potato.

It will be a lot of fun, but they will also learn something about Diversity and Inclusion.

Using Both Diversity and Inclusion

We hear a lot about Diversity and Inclusion these days but they don’t naturally go together in most organizations.

Diversity is all about recognizing and celebrating the differences in each of us. No two potatoes are exactly alike; they have different shapes, different sizes, different textures and skin colors, and even the placement of the eyes.

Inclusion means I can two or more potatoes together and even though each is a different size and shape and color; when I put them together they make a tasty meal. With inclusion in the workplace, we take the differences in each of us; the different skills sets and strengths, different backgrounds and attitudes, and we learn how we combine them together to be most productive for the team or the organization.

Many organizations practice diversity (mostly as a public relations mandate) but don’t practice inclusion. That’s a waste. It’s a waste of human resources, financial resources, and time.

Why spend the money hiring and training someone you aren’t going to make an integral part of the whole?

When we practice both diversity AND inclusion, then we have produced a team that is productive, effective, and profitable.

So here’s four ways to create your inclusive and productive team:

CONNECT WITH YOUR TEAM MEMBERS – As a leader, it’s very important that you connect with each person and get to know them well enough to understand their goals and their dreams. What they like to do and what they don’t like to do. Where they see themselves fitting in to the whole. A lot of times they may very well be right.
IDENTIFY STRENGTHS – Start with an assessment. There are lots of great ones out there, free and fee-based. If you’re not sure, give me a call and I’ll help. The important thing is you want to identify those strengths because that’s what we are looking to use. You don’t want to worry about weaknesses except in terms of how we can compliment that.
BUILD A STRENGTHS-BASED TEAM – Build your team based on the strengths of each person complimenting the weaknesses of other team members.
FOSTER CONTINUOUS GROWTH – You want to build a mindset in your team for continuous growth and improvement of their strengths. Continuous personal growth allows them to take the strengths that they have and making them stronger. They will be more effective for the organization, they are going to be happier as a result, your teams are going to be more cohesive and more productive and you are going to see the results in your bottom-line.

Five Ways to Become Trustworthy

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Number One Trait

Some years back UCLA did a survey of 1300 executives around the country and they asked for five traits that were keys to advancement for employees. All 1300 of them included INTEGRITY somewhere in the list.

Here’s the real kicker.

71% of them rated INTEGRITY NUMBER ONE!

Being TRUSTWORTHY is an integral part of integrity. So, obviously, being trustworthy is a critical character trait if you want to move up the corporate ladder, keep your employees, or build your customer base.

Bob Burg will tell you that

All things being equal people will do business with people they know, like, and TRUST.

The first law of the Boy Scout Law, which defines how a Boy Scout is supposed to live their life, is A Scout is Trustworthy. Here’s the explanation:

“A Scout always tells the truth. He is honest and keeps his promises. People can depend on him.”

Our trustworthiness is also quite obviously a key to our relationships with others. If your spouse or significant other can’t trust you, the relationship is destroyed. If your friends can’t trust you and count on you, then they will simply no longer expect anything from you and eventually will simply stop being around you or having your around.

If your co-workers can’t trust you, then you will not be able to function as part of a team. If you employees can’t trust you, they will become disengaged and productivity suffers; not to mention the bottom line.

We know this, yet somehow the focus on trust seems to be lost somewhere in the desire to “close the deal” or secure what we want.

When we focus on trust, however, we find that acquiring those things and closing that deal becomes easier because of who we are and what we stand for.

When we are trustworthy, we are the go to person that everyone counts on to make it happen. That has value in so many ways, including financially.

Being trustworthy is the deal-maker…or the deal breaker.

Here are some ways you can build trust on a daily basis:

PRODUCE RESULTS – when you have a proven track record of accomplishing things people will trust you to do the things you say you are going to do. To meet the deadline or to accomplish the task no matter how challenging it is.
GIVE YOUR WORD ONLY WHEN YOU MEAN IT – Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
KEEP YOUR WORD AT ALL COSTS – This is critical. When people know that no matter what you are going to do what you say you are going to do, then your trustworthiness grows and builds over time.
BE CONSISTENT – Consistency is a key to both trustworthiness and integrity. People need to know what they can count on.
RESPECT YOURSELF AND OTHERS – When you show respect for other people and respect yourself, then people will believe and trust that you are who you say you are and you will do what you say you are going to do.

Zombie Nation Revisited – Engagement is the Cure!

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Are You in a Zombie Workplace?

Okay, it’s a little dramatic but it also brings to light a growing trend in the business world today.

Crashing economies, cutbacks, layoffs, and uncertainty leads people to become less engaged in the workplace.

Last year, I wrote about a Forbes magazine article that quotes a Gallup survey stating that over 70% of U.S. workers are less engaged in the workplace.

70%!

If that doesn’t shock you, it should! If you are a small business owner with employees, it should also scare you.

Your Business is in Danger

As a business owner, you are especially vulnerable to the consequences of dis-engaged employees. Teams grow divisive; managers treat employees badly; employees treat each other and customers badly; office theft goes up; productivity goes down drastically.

These people come and they go, they do the 9 to 5, they grow through the motions and do the minimum work to get by, and are not fully engaged.

Everyone loses.

LEADERS are to blame.

Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership -John Maxwell

Six Rules of Engagement

If you are a leader in your environment, here’s some things you can do to fix that and help prevent the zombification of yourself or your employees.

KNOW YOUR SELF – Too many times, people don’t realize THEY are the problem. You have probably worked for a leader who blames lazy employees, ethnic, racial, or generational cultures, bad economies, and a myriad of other reasons for why things aren’t going well. If you are a leader and your people aren’t following, YOU are the problem. Fix it.
GROW YOUR SELF – This is how you fix it. You can’t change them, you cannot change things like the economy or anything else beyond your control. What you can do is change YOU. Learn to become more optimistic, learn to develop the characteristics that you are seeking in employees. When I was a manager, I used to brag about how I made a point of hiring people better and smarter than me. That was so wrong. I couldn’t possibly do it. You attract what you are, not what you wish. If YOU grow, you’ll find yourself getting the kind of people you desire.
KNOW YOUR PEOPLE– Connect with them. It’s through relationships that people build trust, respect, and more like they are a part of things when they feel connected with you. When you can answer the three questions everyone asks in virtually ANY kind of relationship, then you can connect and influence them and they will become engaged. The three questions you must answer are:
- Do you CARE for ME?
- Can you HELP ME?
- Can I TRUST YOU?
FOCUS ON THE STRENGTHS – Yours and the people you work with. Focus on how you can best use the strengths they have to compensate for your weaknesses and help accomplish the company’s goals. That’s what a TEAM is all about.
REWARD THE BEHAVIORS YOU WANT – Not a lot of people do this. They spend more time rewarding they don’t like, but you want to spend time rewarding the behaviors you desire. Empower people, trust people, encourage people to accomplish the things you want them to do.
TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION – when necessary; which is not the same as impulsive action. Don’t react impulsively, take the time to think about the appropriate response and then take the action now. People will respect you more for taking considered, decisive immediate action than if you hem and haw or you are impulsive.

What are some ways you have seen organizations engage their employees?

Why Fortune is Not Your Best Friend

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Fortune Filled

Our lives are filled with references to fortune. The popular game show Wheel of Fortune, of course. The infamous rainbow and the pot of gold at the end, guarded by a Leprechaun. We have our dreams of fame and fortune.

When I was younger we used to play a game with fortune cookies at oriental restaurants. Perhaps you played it too. You would read your fortune out loud to everyone and then add the words “..in bed!” to the end. So “You will have great unexpected good luck” became “You will have great unexpected good luck IN BED.” Silly, but fun and funny, especially at the age when anything having to do with sex was funny. It did, however, have a way of shaping perspective.

The Dictionary has two definitions of fortune; one is

“a large amount of money or assets”

but the other is

“chance or luck as an arbitrary force in human events”

We often rely on the latter to give us the former. In other words, we often rely on chance or luck to give us our fortune.

I am reminded of the story of the man who spends him time praying every day to win the lottery.

“Please just let me win the lottery! I won’t ask for anything else!“

Every week he wouldn’t win and every week he would pray. He became more frustrated as time went on and finally in exasperation he prayed again,

“I have prayed and prayed to win the lottery. Why won’t you let me win the lottery?“

Then a voice boomed out,

“Meet me halfway – buy a ticket!“

Two sayings stick in my mind about fortune that I think says everything you need to know. The first is from Cervantes

Diligence is the Mother of Good Fortune

and the other is that

Fortune Favors the Bold

Here’s some tips to help you reach your fortune:

DON’T RELY ON FORTUNE OR LUCK – Reject the second definition of fortune. Don’t live by chance. Don’t allow the course of human events to determine when you will get your fortune or what kind of fortune you will have.
DEFINE WHAT YOUR FORTUNE IS – for some it is a whole lot of money but it can something else for others. When I counsel people I will ask them what one of their business goals are and they almost always answer “make more money!” So, $1 more is good? You need to define how much is more. What do you want to accomplish? There is fortune to be found in many things rather than just money.
KNOW HOW TO GET THERE – Define the path to reach your fortune.
DAILY DILIGENCE – Working daily to move closer to your goals or your fortune. Keep doing positive things to move closer to your goals every day.

It’s not that these things will make the wheel spin in your favor; it’s that you will discover you don’t need the wheel!

What do YOU think?